imperatives :
climate instability mitigating suburbanites’ high carbon footprints and adapting to severe weather
rising energy costs living compactly reduces energy use in buildings and for transportation
poverty and social segregation since 2005 more Americans in poverty live in suburbs than cities
public health suburban living raises risk of obesity, suicide, and death by automobile crashes
Affordability the savings of “drive ‘til you qualify” are wiped out by rising transportation costs
market driver headlines :
demographic shifts suburbia simply isn’t “family-focused” anymore. 2/3 of suburban hh’s don’t have kids, 85% of new hh’s won’t through 2025 . Millenials are looking for nightlife and value wifi and connectedness more than cars.
the new centers as metros have expanded, first ring suburbs and commercial corridors now have central locations, often meriting densification and urbanization of their “underperforming asphalt”.
relocalization of people, place, landscape, and activity tactical urbanism, crowdsourceing, and collaborative consumption cheap space for community-serving uses “third places”
placemaking through : !
Re-inhabitation
Congress for the New Urbanism: Next Gen short-term projects for long-term gains!
pavement to plaza depave
parklet yarnbombing
Walk posters guerrilla grafting
From strip to job and town center Willingboro Town Center Willingboro, NJ Croxton Collaborative Architects
1960 1. Boscov’s Furniture 2. Sears 3. Woolworths 4. Power plant
2009 1. Mail-service pharmacy 2. Office building 3. Public library w/ retail 4. Community College 5. Town Commons 6. Townhouses 7. Planted swales
Courtesty Croxton Collaborative Architects MTC Aerial Photography
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100 Oaks Mall & Medical Center, Nashville TN: Medical center on 2nd floor of once-dying mall
Wellspring Medical & Wellness Center, Woodburn, OR in former K-Mart
Collinwood Recreation Center, Collinwood OH: from dead Big Lots store to public recreation center with bioswales on former parking lot
RWJ Hamilton Ctr for Health & Wellnesss, Hamilton, NJ: Former Ames Dept Store
Updating the “L” strip mall as a “third place” with portals to the neighborhood Lake Grove Shopping Center, Lake Oswego, OR: Eric Shoemaker Beam Development
From “back” to a new front to the neighborhood
urbanize – organize buildings to create connected outdoor rooms and walkable street networks densify and diversify: reward the pedestrian eye green the infrastructure
placemaking through:
Redevelopment
Suburban Form Urban Form -buildings as discrete, stand-alone objects -buildings align and front onto the street -open space lacks form, is dominated by cars -open space is shaped by the buildings; outdoor room -blocks and streets are large, unconducive to walking -blocks and streets are smaller, more walkable,safer -single uses, separated infrastructure systems -mixed uses, more integrated infrastructure systems
From dead mall to green downtown Belmar, Lakewood, CO: Continuum Partners; Elkus Manfredi Architects, Civitas Inc.
transit triggers infill of an office park University Town Center, Hyattsville, MD Prince George’s Metro Center, Inc.; Parker Rodriguez, RTKL Associates, WDG Architecture
1980 2009
From a park-n-ride + mall to a high-design civic centre geothermal TOD Surrey Surrey Central City, Surrey, BC; Simon Frasier University, Bing Thom Architects, Inc
source: Dunham-Jones, Williamson, 2009
Library Classrooms above shopping mall
Phase 1: college classrooms built above mall, + new high rise
Recapturing traffic islands for redevelopment while making walkable intersections Fort Totten MetroRail stop, Washington DC Planning Department, WAMATA Source: Washington DC Planning Dept website
Intersection retrofit and public placemaking as catalyst Normal Illinois Roundabout, Normal Illinois: Doug Farr Associates, Hoerr Schauer Landscape
Photoz; G. Komar
From 5-lane arterial to 2-lane Main Street with multi-use parking Ramblas Lancaster, CA: Moule & Polyzoides
retrofitting land use, transportation and energy on a commercial corridor Cambie Corridor, Vancouver, BC, Vancouver City Planning Department
reconstruct local ecology, daylight culverted streams, and clean run-off add parks to increase adjacent property values food and energy production carbon sequestration
placemaking through: !
Regreening
from mall parking lot to TOD with water treatment bioswale as park amenity Northgate Urban Center, North Seattle, WA: LEED-ND pilot program Thornton Place, Mithun Architects for Stellar Holdings & Lorig Associates
• Added 530 units of housing at net 96 units/acre (another 1800 coming?) • Increased open space within the Northgate Urban Center by 50% • Provided pedestrian links that shortened walking distances by 50% from several adjacent neighborhoods
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Source: Dunham-Jones, Williamson 2011
2000 condos to replace 200 apts?
Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel: City of Seattle, SvR Design • Reduced impervious surface by 78% • Designed to remove an estimated 40-80% of suspended solids from 91% of the avg annual stormwater runoff from the 680-acre drainage basin • Created new habitat: native birds were observed within one month and native volunteer plants have gotten established with the 85% native species that were planted. Source: Kaid Benfield, Natural Resources Defence Council • Adds an estimated 30% increase in adjacent property values
From urban mall to park ringed with urban housing Columbus City Center Park, Columbus OH
Target retrofitting more strategically at the metro scale Support new tools: Form-Based Codes, Transfer of Development Rights, Health Impact Assessments, Retrofittability Analyses, Greyfield Audits, etc. Replace “drive ‘til you qualify” with compact housing with affordable transit by retrofitting commercial strip corridors into transit-served boulevards Come to CNU 21 in Salt Lake City May 29-June 1
strategy: !
Next Steps
From edge city sprawl to developer-driven 430-acre TOD White Flint, MD; White Flint Partnership, Washington Metropolitan Planning Council
1. Permits development of a new downtown over next 20 years
2. Dedicated-lane BRT circulators outward from Metro Station
3. 10,000 residential units, 2600 of them “affordable”
4. Commercial space up from 14mil s.f to 20mil
5. Limited parking 6. High-rises up to 30-stories 7. Generate $6-7bil in revenue for the
county
From edge city sprawl to developer-driven 430-acre TOD White Flint, MD- North Bethesda Market East & Market II; JBG Companies
Connecting the Dots: Retrofitting the airport, mall, chemical plant and corridor Airport Boulevard, Austin TX: City of Austin, Gateway Planning Group
• Healthy Communities
• Aging in Place: Rethinking Retirement
• Resilience planning and adaptation to local climate change, local food
• Local/district energy, net zero energy, low carbon communities
• Collaborative Economies: bike-sharing, scooter-sharing
• Using social media to enhance community building
strategy: !
Emerging Trends
Partnering to Remove Obstacles to Urbanism by Reforming Standards and Practices Past Initiatives: HOPE VI Mixed- Income Communities LEED-ND CNU/ITE Manual on Walkable Urban Thoroughfares
Emerging Initiatives: Tactical Urbanism, Urban Agricutlure, Code Reform, New Urbanism in China